Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Shadows on the Tomb

We wind-up our 4 day Harvey fest today with a real spine chiller from the April 1952 issue of Black Cat Mystery #34, and likeThe Collectorstory post from the other day, this one also features pencils by Joe Certa. Next month I’ll try my damnedest to work in more Harvey horror for you too, until then...

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And while you’re celebrating Vincent Price and Chris Lee’s birthday’s today, here are a couple of Harvey bonus one-pagers featuring subject matter that both legends are undoubtedly very familiar with…

Hah! I was thinking the same thing Todd. But you know, these people never plan ahead...for goodness's sake, at least try to include the possibility of the dead rising for vengeance.

Anyway...I'm just gonna say that choking "death" on the second page and the skeletons in the purple robes was just badass. I loved it. After I was done I was thinking that it felt awfully short, but you know, after the dead have taken their revenge and all that, there's really nothing else to do but chill out in the family crypt, so oh well. Good fun reading it!

The story today is pretty standard--nice art, but not a lot of build-up or logic (like THAT'S a requirement)--though who would have guessed all you have to do to get an army of dead ancestors to do your bidding is just ask nicely? Time to visit the Vicarage's crypt and give it a try!

I liked the one-pagers better than the main story today--in the first one, an interesting visual of Frankenstein's monster, and nice gore dripping from the hands of the ripper. WTF with Dracula's "short-shorts" look, though? He's the bottomless vampire! Beware the crotch of the undead!

The second page is a bit of a mess, though--H.R. Puffnstuff's Frankenstein, and a reference to "Dumas' Hunchback of Notre Dame"--I thought it was Victor Hugo. Maybe I should go to the library and check out Alexandre Dumas' version! Quasimodo vs. the Three Musketeers!:)

I'm not old enough to know, but these days you wake up alive in your tomb as Carolyn did and you wake up with a body full of formaldehyde. What, in the 50's they just tossed the bodies into elaborately designed crypts but never bothered to prep the corpse at all? And am I the only one who thinks that there was perhaps a 'marriage for money' thing going on? Mr. Dunn looks 20 years younger than his wife. I guess the Harvey 5-pager just can't accommodate that much back story. A fun read, though. I simply must find one of those creepy purple robes before next Halloween!

>a reference to "Dumas' Hunchback of Notre Dame"--I thought it was Victor Hugo.

Good eye Vicar! You win the "Spot the Goof of the Week" award.

I guess it does look like H. R. Frankenstuff is giving the thumbs up in the Horror in the Classics page. But on the House of Horror page Drac is obviously not wearing short shorts, it's called a shadow. Though he still doesn't get off that easily by wearing Peter Pan slippers though.

So Dumas wrote HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME?hmmmm and according to the make-up history book MAKING A MONSTER(which has an introduction by Christopher Lee,ironically.)Victor Hugo wrote PHANTOM OF THE OPERA...hmmm i smell a mystery!....if im not back in 2 days call the police!

Your Horrible Host of Horrors

(aka Steve Banes) Editor / co-editor of IDW's Chilling Archives of Horror Comic Books: ZOMBIES, RETURN OF THE ZOMBIES, DEVIL TALES, and MUMMIES, as well as co-host of the bi-monthly HAUNTED HORROR comic series and HAUNTED LOVE miniseries. (All image scans and photography by me from items found in my own personal, putrid collection-- except where noted.)

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